The main purpose of conducting this study is the researcher’s belief of the major contribution of language to the process of legitimisation in society. The main study focus was to investigate the strategies of legitimisation used by both proponents and opponents of women driving in Saudi Arabia to legitimise or de-legitimise the ban. Accordingly, the study’s uniqueness lies in three different categories; theoretical, methodological and practical.
Regarding the theoretical contribution, it provides some valuable additions to the existing body of literature in the field of CDA; in particular, the discourse of legitimisation. This research builds on the works conducted on strategies of legitimisation by Van Leeuwen (1996, 2007), Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999), and Reyes (2011). It is developing an understanding of some key strategies of legimisation by applying them to a different social context than has been studied before and proposes a new key strategy of legitimisation. However, the novel contribution of this study lies in the fact that it contributes to the understanding of how legitimation and de-legitimation are framed within the discourse of two dichotomous groups that share a context. Previous works examined legitimacy in the political sphere and focused primarily on the discussion of the dominant group to legitimise taking action (e,g, military action, rejection of immigrants’ applications) against the other controlled group. In this particular work, the discourse of legitimacy is central to the issue of women driving (proponents vs. opponents); hence, the discussion of both groups within the same social context is considered, examined and compared regarding how each group legitimises or de-legitimises the status-quo. With regard to the strategies of legitimisation, the study proposes a new strategy; namely, legitimisation through ‘custody’, which is used extensively by both groups as a major category of legitimation. Furthermore, in this study, although ‘analogy’ was introduced in alignment with the ‘moral evaluation’ strategy, ‘analogous evaluation’ can be claimed as an independent category of legitimisation. Another novel contribution of this particular work is that it takes into account the online public opinion as a valuable source of understanding how public opinion is shaped by the legitimation discourse proposed by speakers on mass media. To the researcher’s knowledge, no previous CDA work
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incorporated both the analysis of the legitimacy discourse by key speakers on mass media and the analysis of the UGC of online public opinion in one study. This is a distinctive feature of this research, by which it presents to some extent a broader perception of how discourse is produced, perceived and reproduced in society.
Regarding the methodological contribution, although CDA has been used previously to disclose the practice of legitimation embedded in political or institutional discourse, earlier works analysing discourse of legitimacy (except Van Leeuwen & Wodak 1999) ignored the historical aspect of the issue. However, this study examines the legitimacy discourse of women driving by incorporating the discourse-historical approach; in particular, strategies of positive-Self and negative-Other. Consequently, the study contributes to the literature in proving the applicability and usefulness of the discourse-historical approach within a certain social context. To the extent of the researcher’s knowledge, the study provides a novel methodological contribution. It is the first CDA work to examine the employment of the strategies of positive-Self and negative-Other presentation alongside those of legitimisation to legitimise or de-legitimise a social change. For example, in ‘Legitimising immigration control’ by Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999), although the use of DHA demystified how legitimisation is historically embedded within discourse, the study ignored the essential feature of the Self and Other representation and its role in constructing groups and identifying social actors and social actions. This undoubtedly influences the discourse of legitimacy or de-legitimacy. Furthermore, Reyes (2011) investigated the strategies of legitimisation used by US presidents to legitimise the so-called ‘war on terror’ with little reference to the nominational and predicational strategies used by one side. In this particular work, the strategies of Self and Other representation are intrinsic for both dichotomous groups because they explicitly explain why and how (de-)legitimacy is maintained. However, the emergence of the new category of legitimisation ‘custody’ indicates to some extent the validity of this methodological integration in providing new insights into the analysis of the legitimacy discourse.
On a practical level, the study contributes by adding to the emancipatory project of CDA, by which it uncovers the hidden meanings and naturalised ideologies through discourse. With regard to the local context, the study is the first to tackle the women driving issue by considering the discourse of both the proponents and opponents via mass media and online
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public opinion. To some extent, this study makes a unique contribution to the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia and lays the foundation for further research to investigate the issue from a linguistic perspective. The study seeks to help eliminate the practice of inequality in Saudi society by enlightening the public on the construction of legitimacy, hoping to raise public awareness, rectifying wrongdoings and injustice; thereby leading to a positive social change. Furthermore, this particular work is expected to contribute to lessening the exploitation of the religious texts in other similar issues within the Saudi society. In addition, the findings of this study reveal how each group (proponents and opponents) is mutually representative, and how the online commenters reflect on these representations. However, for the sake of an essential CDA principle that is ‘self-critique’, it is an illusion if the researcher tries to place himself in a privileged position. In fact, this work is nothing but a single interpretation by a researcher who is part of the society, influenced by it and socially constructed by the discourses he seeks to deconstruct.